Redact PDF
Draw black rectangles over sensitive PDF content and download a flattened PDF. Covered content is removed from the output. Files stay on your device.
How it works
- 1Choose a PDF up to 25 MB and 30 pages. Password-protected files are not supported.
- 2Drag across each sensitive area to draw a black rectangle. Cover whole characters with a small margin.
- 3Use Previous and Next to review every page. Undo the last rectangle or clear the current page if needed.
- 4Create the redacted PDF, then open the download and inspect all pages before sharing.
About this tool
Redact a PDF by painting black rectangles into flattened page images, leaving the covered content out of the downloaded file. A black box added as an annotation in an ordinary PDF editor can leave the original text underneath, where it may be copied, searched or recovered by removing the box. This tool renders each page to pixels, paints your rectangles into those pixels, then builds a new PDF from the resulting images. It never copies the original text or objects to the output.
Questions
Can someone recover the covered text?
The output contains only flattened page images with black pixels in the selected areas. Original text, images, annotations, attachments and document metadata are not copied. Content outside the rectangles remains visible, so cover each sensitive area fully and inspect the downloaded file.
Why is a normal black box not sufficient?
An annotation or rectangle can sit above PDF text without deleting it. A reader may still copy the text or remove the overlay. Here the rectangles are painted into the page image before the output PDF is created.
Will the output remain searchable?
No. Every page becomes a static PNG image, including pages with no rectangles. Text selection, links, forms, bookmarks and accessibility tags are lost. The output may be much larger than the original.
Does the tool find sensitive information automatically?
No. You choose every area manually. Check all pages for names, account numbers, barcodes and repeated details. The preview shows page content as rendered by pdf.js, including supported annotations.
Are my PDFs uploaded?
No. Previewing and redaction run in this browser tab. Keep the original separate, as the redacted output cannot restore covered content.
docshift is a collection of free PDF, image, video, audio and data tools. File processing runs in your browser; files are never uploaded.